An automotive industry roundtable in Adelaide has discussed how to support the manufacturing sector as Holden plans for its departure by 2017.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill says industry experts have been given a detailed plan and it will be made public later.

"[We presented] a detailed plan in draft form, for any additions or alterations to be made by that meeting, so we have every single initiative that we can advance to the Federal Government to make the changes we need to protect jobs in South Australia," he said.

The Automotive Transformation Coordinator appointed by the SA Government, former federal minister Greg Combet, was at the meeting and keen to map out a way forward for the component makers which are supplying Holden.

He said the federal assistance outlined by the Prime Minister Tony Abbott this week fell a 'fair way short' of what was needed to support auto workers and manufacturing industry beyond Holden and Ford's departures from Australian manufacturing.

Holden executive George Svigos assured components suppliers represented at the meeting the company was keen to work closely with them as it moved toward its manufacturing exit in 2017.

He said the company still had many high-quality cars to build before it made any departure.

Mr Svigos again made clear Holden would contribute to the assistance fund promised by Mr Abbott and slammed as 'pathetic' by the South Australian Government.

Labour experts are calling on policy makers not to rely on the mining and defence sectors to employ the bulk of retrenched auto workers.

John Spoehr of Adelaide University's Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre says a federal assistance package announced this week by Prime Minister Tony Abbott is similar in size to a package offered when Mitsubishi closed in 2008, but times were different then.

"The problem is the scale of the impact of the closure of Holden is four or five times greater than that of Mitsubishi, so the assistance package is not nearly substantial enough to deal with the problem," he said.

Older workers will need training focus

Demographer Professor Graeme Hugo of Adelaide University says a wide-ranging retraining package is needed and it will need to look after older workers.

"To me, any retraining program really has to take this into account because many of the people who are going to be displaced are people who've spent decades working in the car industry," he said.

"It's a two-way process and I think we do tend to underestimate people's flexibility and ability to be able to make changes.

"I think part of it too is looking at this in an optimistic way, that we are going to have in areas like aged care, a very substantial increase demand for workers and the opportunities are going to be there for some people to forge new and stimulating careers."

Jane Mussared, from not-for-profit aged care provider ACH Group, says some of its employees have come from the manufacturing sector.

"They have come into it thinking 'This is not for me, this is not something I'm interested in' and because of the support we've been able to provide and the transition and mentoring that's been built into our traineeship program and indeed because our jobs are great jobs, people have come over and fallen in love [with the work]," she said.

Lyn Cotter is 52 and tried something new after taking a voluntary redundancy from Holden earlier in the year.

After three decades at the car maker, she is now a cleaner at a hospital in Adelaide.

"Now I'm doing it, I think it was a good thing. I realised what a rut I was in before," she said.

"Obviously I thought 'Will I be alright?' Everyone said 'What do you want to do that for?' but no I'm quite enjoying it and every day is something different," she said.